"I
firmly believe that any man's finest hour-his greatest fulfillment to all he
holds dear... is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and
lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious." - Vince Lombardi

After
a weekend of fierce battles even IM Samuel Shankland's cell phone ran out of
battery.

146
players converged in Santa Clara to welcome 2010 with a Chess Tournament. This
included 34 in the developmental "under 1000" section. The FIDE rated
Master section attracted 21 players.

The
story of the year is already brewing and it is about the life and times of Samuel Sevian, Bay Area Chess Fellow in 2009 and 2010.
9-year-old Sevian gained 20 rating points to advance to 2143 with nine months to go in his
quest to be the youngest Master in history. Sevian beat two masters and drew
against two others before running out of steam on the last day falling on the
last day. He has a shot and completing his mission early in 2010 and will be
playing again at Continental Chess's January CA tournament, the Golden State Open (which will be covered by "f-pawn" Michael Aigner on CLO ) as well as the 36thAnnual People's
Tournament.

Simon
Rubinstein-Salzedo won the Expert section with 5.0. Brain Wai won the A section.

Edward Li and Colin Chow shared the top honors in the B-section with 4.5 points.

Veteran Harold
Parker dominated the C section. Abraham Adberstein won the D section and David
Adberstein won the E section. Since they were both unrated, we should also
mention Josiah Stearman as the winner of D section as well as Daniel Song and
Jothi Ramesh sharing the top E section award.